The remorseless rise of Napoli this season can be traced to a Chinese dinner
to which Aurelio de Laurentiis, the club’s dynamic film-producer owner,
treated Rafael Benítez at the Dorchester in May.

It was there that the Partenopei’s president fleshed out his vision to transform this febrile cauldron of southern Italian passion into one of Europe’s pre-eminent powerhouses and the latest evidence, after a 2-0 win at Genoa to catapult them back to the summit of Serie A, would suggest that the meal was a worthy extravagance.

While Benítez might be the frontman for this Neapolitan renaissance, De Laurentiis is the concealed choreo­grapher. Sustaining the family film trade of his more celebrated uncle Dino, he brought Napoli back from the precipice in 2004, buying them after they had been declared bankrupt and relegated to third division.

Within a decade, they have become emblematic of a renewed vigour in the Italian game, fostering a formidable youth system and presenting such an enticing proposition to top players that they could prise Gonzalo Higuaín from the clutches of Arsenal.

Only this week De Laurentiis has delivered a stern ultimatum to Naples’ city council, frustrated by their dithering over his proposed revamp of Napoli’s crumbling Stadio San Paolo – where the ‘Vecchi Lions’ Ultras of the Curva A help to create the most deafening cacophony – as he threatens instead to build a stadium in nearby Caserta. Clearly, the power brokers in a city still troubled by tensions between rival Mafia clans do things their own way.

De Larentiis said on Monday: “I have invested a lot of money into this team, and I feel that it’s about time that things are done properly around here. Otherwise, I will just go back to Los Angeles and the city can sort out their football problems for themselves.”

It is highly unlikely that he will abandon his most prized investment so hastily. Not when he has just spent more than £30 million on enticing Higuaín to the Italian Riviera, or when he has enlisted Benítez with the specific task of restoring Napoli to their late Eighties apogee.

The shadow of Diego Maradona, cast as a form of eternal president in this city for guiding the club to two league titles and a Uefa Cup triumph during that period, looms ominously over any Napoli team.

But the number of fans clamouring at the gates of their Castel Volturno training base for the signature of Higuaín, goalkeeper Pepe Reina or Slovakian playmaker Marek Hamslik illustrates that many members of this side have already attained a venerable status.

This summer Napoli lost one of the finest strikers in Europe, Uruguayan Edinson Cavani, to Paris St-Germain for £60 million but the rebuilding work has been so swift – with the recruiting of Higuaín and fellow forward José Calléjon, plus the elevation of academy product Lorenzo Insigne – that the club’s obsessive Ultras have scarcely noticed the joins. Arsène Wenger, naturally, is aware of the threat that awaits in the Champions League group match at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday evening.

“Napoli are a team who do not usually invests this kind of money,” the Arsenal manager said on Monday. “But their chairman is very, very ambitious, and Benítez can bring experience and quality. At Inter Milan he took over a squad that was maybe a little bit over the hill, but Napoli are on the way up.”

Benítez and De Laurentiis might appear an odd couple and yet the combination is proving a vibrant one, with the owner persuading the Spaniard, genial yet always highly guarded, to take a starring role in the club’s forthcoming ‘Christmas comedy’, of all things.

As Benítez put it: “Aurelio was very clear in outlining to me what he wanted to do. You can see that so far, everything is going in the right direction.”